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“Wine is supposed to be delicious,” says long-time retailer Wally Plahutnik. So why do we have such trouble finding delicious wine?

Wonder why you go to buy wine and can’t find anything you like? That’s been Wally Plahutnik’s question, too, as he watched wine retailing change over the past 27 years. Wine, he fears, is turning into a mass produced commodity where delicious and interesting — as well as price — don’t matter. Sounds like the Wine Curmudgeon’s kind of guy, yes?

Wally, who recently retired, is the kind of retailer we need more of — passionate, committed, and focused on helping wine drinkers find what they want, not what someone else says they should drink. We talked about the changes in the wine business over the past decades, as well as the troubles facing the independent retailer and where to find the best values.